Category: tarot spreads

Recently I added to my reading mix, a deck of ordinary playing cards. These have been in use for cartomancy; divination and fortune telling, for at least 400 years longer than the Tarot, and neither one of them began as fortune telling tools. They were both invented for gaming purposes. In the case of playing cards, it’s thought they first came to Europe from the Middle East, arriving there in turn from the Far East.

Fully illustrated Tarot cards contain pictorial ingredients offering unlimited possibilities of translation via associative thinking, but playing cards, while less interesting pictorially, and somewhat prosaic, will do the job.

I thought I’d try them out in a recent face to face reading for a new client, reserving them for getting at a few yes or no answers if required.

Asking for the Tarot’s insight into my client’s recent significant past I drew The Fool and The Ace of Pentacles from The Gilded Tarot, images by kind permission of Ciro Marchetti.

The Fool is about opportunity, enthusiasm, a gamble, a birth. The Ace of Pentacles suggests a windfall, a new job or business, a new home, a garden or a new, precious object.

These following The Emperor prompted me to ask the client, had there been a recent major change or opportunity to do with a new job or new kind of work, and also maybe a new home?

And was it possible this new home might be in the countryside or else have a big garden or some land?

He said he had bought a house with land, and was planning to build on that land, and he wanted to know, what were the prospects for successful completion?

Yee-haa! Time to put my ordinary playing cards to the test and I drew these.

My first observation was that I had drawn two red cards and one black. Learning to do psychic readings is all about self-programming, and like learning anything, involves rote and repetition. I’ve decided a red card mean yes, whether it’s a diamond or a heart, and a black card means no, whether it’s a spade or a club card. And then I go for best of three, and the numbers might swing my thinking.

You could decide that a black card means yes, if you wanted, and a red card means no, and it might work splendidly reliably if you are consistent, though it might prove counter-intuitive as the most challenging cards in a playing deck – most, not all, are contained within the suits of spades and clubs.

Once decided on your own system, you need to stick to it. There’s no right or wrong with these things. There’s what works subject to proof. This is where there can arise a problem with going to classes ‘to be taught’ how to read. You are your own best teacher. Learning to ‘see’ in this way is solitary. Even lonely. It is not gregarious at source. Study adds skill and there is a vast library here to study, but in the end, while rendered articulate by skill, the oracular spirit, to be true to itself, remains a cat who walks alone.

The short answer to the client’s question therefore was yes, but I was struck by the appearance of two diamonds cards, equating to the Tarot’s suit of Pentacles; the suit of earth.

I was additionally struck by the fact that the middle card was twice the number value of the first card. a 4 and an 8. It made me think of foundations, and plumb-lines; four walls, and then four walls, doubled.

It didn’t seem random, it felt as if it might be significant and I said to the client, ‘are there going to be TWO buildings, by any chance? And one is twice the size of the other? But this black card, the 3 of Clubs, suggests there’s a bit of stress already?’

Notice, I was asking him. That’s because I did not know if this was correct. I only knew that’s what I was being shown, and wanted to check.

‘There ARE going to be two buildings’ he said, nodding surprised, ‘log cabins and one is going to be exactly twice the size of the other one. And yes, it’s fair to say there’s a fair bit of stress…’

And so the discussion moved forward.

Well done, my little £1.99 fortune-telling friends. Although I don’t tell fortunes, you’ve clearly got my number, and I think you and I need to get better acquainted.

During a reading the other day, with a delightful client; charming, brave and resourceful, we looked first at a number of questions focussed on her two businesses. Then the conversation moved to children’s activities and prospects, and in respect of her son, 18, I drew the Four of Cups and said, is this how he’s been sometimes, lately? Fed up, irritable and restless, wanting to do something new but not yet able to decide, or make a start?

The card prompting this question was the Four of Cups, a card commonly nicknamed ‘the bored boy,’ and whether you’re a boy or not, it’s an unpleasant state of mind, even while it’s not exactly a problem you can do nothing about.

So, what might be the path ahead for him? I drew The Eight of Pentacles, and as you can see, it shows an apprentice at work, happily engrossed, so much so, he is burning the midnight oil, watched by a mouse who’s probably hoping for a crumb of his supper.

‘I think he will do well in an apprenticeship, head and hand working together in unity, making or crafting something,’ I said.

He was wondering about something like that, the client said, maybe technical drawing.

Yes! Good choice.

‘What about the RAF?’ I said, ‘I feel it might be worth his while to see whether they’re recruiting.’

‘That’s amazing!’ she said. ‘How did you know? He has been talking about a technical apprenticeship in the RAF.’

OK then, his next port of call is sorted, and if he doesn’t end up there exactly, it will be something of that kind.

The 4 of a bored boy becomes the 8 of a busy boy, and to be busy, is very often to be happy.

Is the word or idea of the RAF anywhere written in the cards? No, of course not. This was just another instance of a word springing out, using a card as a diving board. Gob-shiting, I call it. Such are the various ways of reading the Tarot.

Recently, there was a sudden death in the extended family circle. Not close to me, personally, but untimely and deeply sad, and I’d been seeing the Tower card for early June, ever since the end of April and had been holding myself slightly in readiness for unwelcome news. The Tower delivered more bad stuff after this sad event, and it’s still on-going, very sadly but it also did another job, to do with timing.

I asked the Tarot, what day of the week will V’s funeral be held?

I drew The Tower card and said to Il Matrimonio who’d asked. ‘I think it will be on a Tuesday.’

The Tower card corresponds to Mars, god of war, who is Tyr or Tew in Norse mythology, and Tyr gives his name to Tuesday. This ultimate warrior lost his hand in binding the great wolf Fenris, who threatened to eat the world.

Four days later we learned the funeral will be held on Tuesday 1 July.

Tarot and timing is notoriously tricky amongst readers, but there are a number of ways of having a stab at predicting when a thing might happen using the cards.

A dominance of Swords and Wands cards indicate now, soon or quickly. A dominance of Pentacles and Cups cards indicates later, gradually, delays.

Days of the Week correlations:

Monday The Moon cardTuesday, The Tower (Tyr’s/Tew’s day)Wednesday, The Magician (Odin’s/Woden’s day)Thursday, The Wheel of FortuneFriday, The Empress, Friday (Freya’s day)Saturday, (Saturn’s Day) The World cardSunday, the Sun card.

St. George and the Dragon by Briton Reviere. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

In honour of St George’s day, I’ll try the Tarot out as an interviewing tool, as a Translator across Time and Truth. St George’s Day, April 23rd, is also thought to be the anniversary of the death of William Shakespeare.

The Tarot tells no lies, but it stands to reason, factually speaking, there can be no getting at ‘the truth’ of St George. A legend may contain grains of fact, while representing the poetic truth of an amalgam of people or myths. As the poet, Kathleen Raine expressed it, ‘Myth is the Truth of Fact, not Fact the Truth of Myth.’

What some call fantastical, or lies, even damned lies, if they don’t apprehend poetic truth, for others is just taking a possibility for a walk, an interesting exercise with judgement in abeyance. Let’s suspend judgement just for a moment, as we enter the Tarot’s Imaginarium.

That poor dragon. Call the RSPCA. Well, that’s another way of looking at it, by way of a change.

George, if I may, if you can hear me, what can you tell us about yourself? The Six of Swords Rx:

I am the other side of The River. I hear you only faintly, your words are not my language, and yet I understand you. There must be a translator somewhere. I have forgotten many things, but I remember I was a traveller. I made long journeys over the sea as well as by land. When I was small I’d go looking for frogs amongst the bullrushes in the pebbled stream, near where I lived. It was good luck to find a frog.

I didn’t read as well as my father wished, I had some letters, taught me by an old Persian with scarred legs – I didn’t know how he’d got those. He knew about numbers and about the stars. Sometimes he would let me sit by him, and show me maps of the sky.

You’re reputed to have killed a dragon. What can you tell us about that?The Queen of Cups/Ace Pentacles Rx.

There was something once, but I wouldn’t call it a dragon. It was a water-drake, a filthy great eel, attacking fishermen, robbing nets some place I stopped off, they saw I was a military man and they offered coin and a night’s lodgings if I would help them hunt and kill it, and they were in difficulties, so I did.

What about the rescued princess?

Queen of Cups Rx

Princess? I don’t know. There was a woman, still beautiful, not young. Nothing to do with the drake. I was passing through, the problem was mentioned, good coin offered (Ace Coins Rx) I went out at night with the fishermen. One guided the boat, I saw the great eel showing silver at the surface, and threw my lance. We had to withdraw and wait. There was no question of pulling the lance out of this thing, or pulling it from the water still alive. Its mistake was in coming so close to the surface when the moon was so bright. I’d never seen one so huge. They said it had taken a child.
Another thing happened that might have become a story of a dragon. A battle chariot came down on us. A huge thing with its horse team decked out in the semblance of a beast, with a beast’s head carving. I flung a spear, it went through the spokes of one of the wheels. My farthest throw ever, they said. Maybe that’s the root of the story. It was that, or the eel. I kept a pine marten once, for a season, but I don’t imagine that will qualify.

What was your profession?

The King of Swords
(This ties in with known history) Oh, I was ‘miles’, a soldier, I became ‘miles’ after the death of my mother, and I went on to become an officer. A thing to be said for Rome was, it rewarded skill and service, it gave you chances. I wasn’t popular, or perhaps I simply mean, I wasn’t easy and outgoing. I was known for a certain reserve, nothing to do with rank. I was rarely the worse for wear, I laughed at jokes, but I didn’t make many. But the men didn’t give me a hard time either about getting promotion. I tried hard to be fair, always, didn’t put on airs, and few of them could see further or clearer than I could, or better me with a lance. I had a horse, a grey mare called Usa .

(Reading note: I got this name by ‘hearing’ it. Sometimes insights come this way in a real life reading. I had to look it up, and I found that ‘Usa’ is not listed as a Roman or Cappadocian name, but it is a Sanskrit name, meaning ‘Dawn’. My surprise was at finding the name actually existed, I hadn’t come across it before.)

What else, George?
Whatever I said I would do, I did. In my life I had two homes, two peoples, two purses and they were sometimes empty. I was always divided. But it was not in my nature to function divided. I looked at this, or I looked at that, the rest went into the background. I think others besides myself might have paid a heavy price for that. I could not see that at the time. Or if I did, I could not, or would not change it.

Is it accurate to say you were a Christian?The Hierophant Rx
The word echoes. I remember that I found myself out of step, dangerously so.

Why was that?

The World.

Perhaps it was just the world I had came into.

What do you remember about leaving Life?

Seven of Wands, Ace of Cups.

There must have been pain and fear but I don’t remember. I can only see blows coming at me to know it was not gentle. Then I was looking down from a height, the peace of knowing I had escaped and was free. Little else.

Did you have children?
The Three of Swords Rx
I feel I was mourned from afar. A son. I last saw him, before embarking overseas again. He had lately been apprenticed. Tooling of leather, I think. He was enjoying the work. Perhaps he continued to become a craftsman or merchant (3 Wands) I hope Life was good for him, I hope he got what he needed and wanted, but what his life path was like afterwards, I can never know.

‘The hunger for meaning and purpose is nothing less than the human homing instinct — the Fourth Instinct — at work. But in the tangled maze of history, we have been sidetracked; in the long journey home, we forgot our destination. Indeed, we were told that it does not exist.’ Arianna Huffington.

‘My sun shall rise in the East, then shall my soul be at peace, ‘ Vangelis.

‘From all points of the compass flock’d birds of all feather.’ Source: Gutenberg. Org

From the beginning, we have been a migratory animal, in some parts of the world, more than others. Several cards in Tarot talk of home, rightly so, as it is a key ingredient of human experience, and a ruling perception. The Ace of Pentacles, Ten of Pentacles, Four of Wands, and Six of Cups all tell stories of a person’s home in a reading.

The Tarot’s Ace of Pentacles, which sometimes talks about food, money, or books, or bricks and mortar says, Earth itself is the nest, the Soul of Man is in the roots of the species. Below is The Ace of Pentacles from The Gilded Tarot, publisher Llewellyn, by kind permission of Ciro Marchetti.

A good discipline for a reader is to read little and often. It’s a kind of self-programming. Make it tough on yourself, tarot is wonderfully subtle but sometimes you need to nail a colour to the mast.

However open your vision, and habits of interpretation when doing readings for others, it’s good to know you will generally get it right. You won’t always of course, so feed yourself a piece of humble pie every day, but you need to be right a LOT as a professional reader, or what’s your value? So practice, and challenge yourself with the nail-biting no-no that is the CLOSED QUESTION.

‘Will XYZ happen or won’t it?’ The second card is to ask why will it or won’t it? The discussion or meditation then opens out again if necessary.

Here is a recent example: I was thinking of attending a tarot social event, taking a friend, a fellow local tarot reader and professional clairvoyant . Knowing what a hermit-crab this shy friend can be, I marked him as a POSSIBLE attendee only, half-expecting him to bow out in advance.

Two days before the scheduled event, he rang to say he’d be going, but I still expected him to change his mind, and the day before I pulled two cards to test this out.

I drew The Ace of Wands Reversed. Wands is the suit of trips and longer journeys, also of selling, bartering and exchange, buzz, chatting, marketing…general communications. Drawing it reversed, denied, suggested he was about to cry off. Now, this was absolutely fine, and was just as I expected, but could the Tarot tell me why in advance of the facts?

I drew The Hierophant Reversed. The Hierophant which used to be known as The Pope, suggests a priest, a teacher, a counsellor or healer, a church, a tradition and an established order. It is orthodoxy and conformity. It can also signify marriage…and keys! That’s the Tarot for you!

The Hierophant from Ciro Marchetti's The Gilded Tarot: publisher Llewellyn.

I looked at it and was puzzled. ‘But A***** doesn’t GO to church!’ I said.

Later that afternoon he rang to say he still wanted to go to the tarot event but was now double-booked. I was glad to think he had plans elsewhere, he’d been a bit down and depressed, and I read this as a sign of recovery. I told him not to worry about the tarot social, I could see he really wanted to go to the other thing instead.

What was it?

A Christian Science church, he said. Did I want to go? Er, well, no. They had a guest speaker coming in, he said. A healer visiting from the States.

Ahaaa! So that was why the Tarot had seemed to say ‘church.’ But it also meant ‘priest/healer.’ It knew what was going on, all right. And the cards had been drawn reversed because, having decided time-planning didn’t allow him to go to both, the events were then being perceived as being in conflict with one another.

You don’t have to be ‘psychic‘ in order to learn tarot, which is a skill of divination, in which one attempts to uncover hidden or semi-hidden information or understanding. You do have to be interested in symbols and associative thinking, you do have to be receptive, but to be ‘psychic’ helps sometimes, to make the symbolic more precise, and to talk in every day, concrete terms, about specifics.

Am I ‘psychic’? Yes, to an extent, and so probably, are you, but what does it mean?

The word ‘psychic’ may comes from the Greek, ‘psyche’, meaning soul and derived from the word ‘psychikos’ meaning, mental, of the mind. ‘Psychic’ implies soulic knowledge, the soul entering and leaving the body on the breath. The word intuition also refers to an inner knowing, that which is our inner tutor, and which we all possess as an inseparable element of normal human instinct.

So what is the difference between being intuitive and psychic? It’s subtle. Perhaps it’s most simply defined as a matter of precision or degree.

The intuition provides us with impressions, feelings, and reactions. Time being of the essence where safety is an issue, intuitions arrive instantly, in advance of any hard evidence to explain them. Intuition is a courier of super-fast intelligence, bypassing conscious processes. Everyone is intuitive. It is a function of competent, normal intelligence, but not everybody, maybe for cultural or ‘intellectual’ reasons, feels comfortable about acknowledging it.

Some ‘diss it’ by saying they will deal only with ‘proven facts’ or evidence or reason.

Yawn. Well, let them, if they want to limit themselves unnecessarily. But this, it could be argued, is actually anti-intellectual. The mind is a whole, not a pie servable in slices.

Psychic insights come when they come, are instantaneous and specific. Something may be ‘seen’ or ‘heard’ or ‘smelled’ or dreamed of, but it will be particular, unlike the formless but none the less powerful, and even life- saving promptings of the intuition.

Early Tarot Images of La Papesse, or High Priestess.

The High Priestess, pictured above, represents both the Intuition, and the Psyche and psychic promptings, or refers to a person who may be female or male, who works or serves as an advisor, or seer.

Reading for a client one evening, I sensed she was holding something back, and to encourage her, asked her directly about a ‘rude man’ I kept sensing, a bully with a loud voice, fair or ginger, a salesman of some kind? The card triggering this was the King of Wands Reversed.

My client said she knew who this was; a man who had a market stall near hers, but she insisted that she’d come only for advice regarding retirement. Courtesy demanded I take her at her word, and we carried on, but I remained uneasy that she hadn’t shared the real worry, and so I hadn’t had a chance to try and help. Such was my feeling.

After she had gone, I was lying in front of the television with a cup of tea, when I suddenly ‘saw’ her in my mind’s eye. She was holding a big round pot in both hands, and she was mending it, with great care and attention.

Oh! I thought. Well, I had mentioned to her that I could see her taking up pottery (prompted by the appearance of the Page of Coins) But I was struck, the mental picture was so vivid.

Next day she called, but I had someone with me and couldn’t call back straight away. When I returned the call, the phone rang for a long time before I rang off. She called again and at last we spoke. The lady now wanted to tell me what was bugging her about the rude man. He was an unwanted admirer. He’d told her that he’d been to me for a reading, that I had performed psychometry on his wrist watch (psychometry is a psychic reading performed using as a focus an object connected to the person being read through a history of physical contact or at least, proximity) I had predicted, so this man said, that he and this lady were going to marry.

So her real reason for coming to see me had been to check this out. Would I say anything that would correspond with this man’s account?

The gentleman was a fibster. What a lot of porky pies and utter ……

I did not know him, I had not read for him, nor do I offer psychometry readings. Nor would I ever have said such a thing. I do not offer predictions, but forecasts, offering a sense of the odds on a question, but nothing prescriptive, for whom am I to disregard the possibilities of free will or the wild card?

I told her this, we chatted awhile, and as a light hearted way of signing off the call, I mentioned my vision of the night before.

‘ That’s why I couldn’t pick up the phone when you rang!’ she said. ‘That’s why I

Psychic Chasms (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

had to call you back. I had glue all over my hands, trying to fix a pot I broke yesterday!’

The vision had therefore been an instance of psychic, as opposed to intuitive ‘knowing’.

It’s a matter of record now, I’m as sane as the next person, or at least as sane as any one of us could prove ourselves to be, but I am a ‘potty’ psychic.

There are many depictions of animals and birds in the Tarot. They form a great part of the human landscape physically, intellectually, emotionally, spiritually, and symbolically. If there’s a heaven, what would it be without them? I wouldn’t mind, personally if mosquitoes, maggots, deadly snakes and komodo dragons didn’t make it. Spiders would be all right as long as they were non-venomous and less than two inches in diameter. However, it’s not me in charge.

The songbird traditionally most associated with Christmas, or to give the winter festival its older name, Yuletide – is the robin redbreast. The cheeky, dumpy little European robin, Erithacus rubecula is a member of the flycatcher family.

Its preferred habitats are woodlands, hedgerows, parks and garden. Its staple diet is worms, seeds, fruits and insects. It will fight over sunflower seeds and it adores mealworms. You can buy these in dried form in lots of outlets including many supermarkets. They look revolting though people used to baiting fish hooks won’t mind them. Robins have been to take mealworms by hand, so irresistibly delicious are they to robin-kind.

Male and female European robins are identical to look at, adults of both sexes having the red breast, while young robins have no red breast, and are a speckled golden brown colour. The lack of red breast in the young defends them from territorial attack by adults. The robin lives a little over one year on average. If it lives beyond 1.1 years it may achieve twelve years and has been known to reach the age of twenty, but long life is rare.

The robin’s endearing appearance belies its feistiness. It’ll fight to the death for its territory, and one in ten die in combat. They have been seen to chase off pigeons much bigger than they are. The one in my garden right now however, is rather timid and will scurry into the rosemary when a pigeon appears. Well, I suppose they are individuals just as we are.

Robin redbreast builds a cup-shaped nest in a hole or hidden in ground cover, and will sing all year round. Click here to hear its song and for other general information from the RSPB:-

The robin received the human pet name of ‘Robin’ in the fifteenth century. It has a special place in the library of legends embedded in the Tarot, and a robin may be observed in some decks, including the King of Pentacles card in the Sacred Circle Tarot Deck.

It belongs there by virtue of the symbolism and superstitions attached to it.

Some older people consider the robin a bird of ill omen, a harbinger of death. It is considered unlucky for a robin to fly into a house as Death is expected to follow. For this reason, a Christmas card with a picture of a robin on it is not always welcome with people aware of this tradition. But compassion and care for the dead is also attributed to the robin. One legend says that it tried to help Christ by pulling off a thorn from the crown Jesus had been made to wear, injuring itself in the process – hence its red breast. Another old tale says that it was a robin who found the bodies of the lost ‘Babes in the Wood‘, and who buried them with a golden coverlet of fallen leaves.

If your robin seems shy, it may be a visitor from Europe. British robins haunt gardens more than their European relatives, are more used to human contact and are bold in comparison with European winter visitors which tend to favour woodlands in their native lands.

All right, you robin.

English: Robin Redbreast (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I’m on my way out with sugared bread (for energy it’s better to give them cake or sugared bread than plain bread) Here are some more of those revolting mealworms, and let’s hang up another half coconut of fat and nuts. But note this, my fine robin friend; this is not just for you, but is for sharing with the blue-tits and coal-tits, the blackbirds, sparrows and the finches.

The North Wind Doth blow

And we shall have snow

And what will the robin do then, poor thing?

He’ll hide in a barn

To keep himself warm

And hide his head under his wing, poor thing.

Let’s see what the robin currently peering out from the safety of the big rosemary bush, will communicate via the Tarot.

Are you a cock or hen robin?

Answer card: The High Priestess. Just to make sure, I pull another card and get the Moon Reversed. Meanings: I am a hen bird. I am solitary right now, I want no mate. This is not the time.

What are you thinking right now?

Answer card: The Empress. Meaning? What have we here? Food! I have discovered a new harvest! Being provided for, I must eat my fill while I can.

I pull another card, just as the robin flies off again…and, strangely enough, the card is The Chariot.The robin has flitted just a short distance to sit on top of the seed feeder hung in the bare branches of the laburnum tree.

Why have you gone to sit there?

Answer card: The Seven of Wands Reversed. Meaning: I am new to this garden and I must be careful. This is a good vantage point from which to spy out enemies and not be taken unawares.

What’s your favourite time of year?

Answer card: The Empress Reversed. Meaning: A time when there are plenty of fruits and seeds, but there are still sheltering leaves on the trees. A time when there are still long hours of light to feed by, and sometimes there’s still warmth…the night is not so bitter, the air does not bite so hard. My legs creak like sticks at first light when I must move for food or die. How I wish it could always be the time of the Empress.

OK, verification may not be an option as with readings done for domestic species. Still, I have done animal readings before, and know intuitive communication can work inter-species. Maybe it would not work with all species, but the tarot affords a means of extending perception beyond the boundaries of self, and living things share common drives and goals. Sentient and sensate beings, whether bare or feathered, scaled or furry, are inextricably subject to vagaries of environment, the common denominator in shared consciousness.

During the severe winter of 1962/63, the UK robin population was worse than decimated, reduced to an estimated 50-60 breeding pairs. Spare a little if you can, for your fellow creatures outside this winter.

Updated: A light hearted look at an ‘Option selecting’ reading, and at deploying the tarot as an alternative tool for animal communication. All, hopefully, will become clear…

Our cat Willow was thirteen at the time of this reading. A small black and white moggie, she’s an introverted, timid and fussy cat. When she’s hungry she trots into the kitchen and meows. Obtaining service, she’ll jump up to sit by the window, a model of composure, looking studiously in another direction, affecting not to notice while you open her food and put it on a saucer.

The food served, Willow’s dignity demands she must not notice it immediately. The trouble is, she often loses interest altogether, jumps down again and stalks off, leaving it to congeal malodorously, so she refuses it later.

She came in meowing and my daughter said. ‘If I feed her, she’ll only turn her nose up, whatever I serve up.’

I knew from previous readings for cats, and other species that the Tarot will sometimes assist, verifiably so, with animal communication. ‘Let’s see if the Tarot knows what she wants,’ I said and drew a card for each of the available options on the menu.

While shuffling I asked the Tarot (ie the portion of the mind that is ‘Tarot’) to ensure the cat’s preference would appear right way up (Dignified) and any she wouldn’t eat would appear upside down (reversed, Ill-Dignified)

I laid out the cards, a row of four and Willow’s selection as translated by the Tarot leapt straight at me, by means of the only upright card amongst the four which was the Queen of Pentacles. The Queen represented the Duck (with courgette) option. Oddly, the colour scheme of the duck pouch matched the green of this Queen’s dress. The Tarot couldn’t quite manage to rustle up a duck, but it did well to produce a peacock.

I almost feel I should apologise to this eminently dignified Earth Queen. It hardly seems to do her justice, to summon he rin this fashion, and yet..if this was too menial a question to put to the Tarot, it begs the question, how low should the bar be set, out of respect for the dignity of the Oracle the Tarot represents? Tarot will talk about the highest things we reach for, also the simplest things. The greatest loves are bound up in simple things, and who is to say what is worthy of another’s attention? Who is to say, what’s simple, just because it appears simple?

The thirteenth century visionary Julian of Norwich said, ‘God does not disdain to serve the body.’ Divinity is in anything, even I suppose in sh… ahem. Pentacles represents all things physical, including crops and animal husbandry and cat food therefore resides absolutely under the jurisdiction of this suit. The Queen of the suit is a Demeter and derives her own happiness in taking care of living things. As a Taurus woman, well over 40, I am represented archetypically in the Tarot as a Queen of Pentacles. Willow is a queen cat and a Virgo subject, so she too, is a Queen of Pentacles in her own right.

No sooner was the duck on the saucer than she gingerly sniffed it, and dived in, leaving two tiny crumbs and not a lick of gravy.

There are implications beyond this, for the using of the Tarot as a sensing device for animal communication, or for people, in sensing whatever might be meant by ‘right choices’. I use this approach quite often in business readings, in order to help identify a target or best strategy.

Dozy old cat. Companion animals roaming our homes. They help us stay close to our roots. We need their lessons and reminders. The Tarot promotes our innate telepathy.

Last Sunday my older daughter rang to say she had applied for a job at a vet’s practice. She had been considering a move for some time, due to lack of further training prospects at the vet’s she had been with for three years.

Hearing there was a job going, she called the recruiting practice only to found the closing date for applications had already gone. She was downcast, then thought, what the hell, sent her CV and a letter of application anyway and was rewarded for her intiative with an invitation to interview.

Would she be offered the job? I was disinclined to look. I didn’t need the cards to offer suggestions for tackling the interview. I used to work in recruitment amongst other things. Applying for the job was a no-brainer; no help asked or needed from the Tarot on that score. What would be, would be etc.

On Tuesday my mother rang, and we got talking about it. I quickly shuffled the cards while on the telephone, asking to be shown a card connected to the outcome of the interview. I was sneaking a peek with no intention of passing it back, as, whether the outcome looked positive or not, I had no wish to interfere with my daughters own processes.

This card of arrival, reinvention, reincarnation, setting forth, is above all a harbinger of new beginnings. Much energy and enthusiasm attach to it. Notice the dog. My daughter’s special interest is dog training and she has run puppy classes.

The dog in the card represents common sense. The Fool card, when drawn upside down indicates either over-timidity or recklessness, immaturity, irresponsibility, bad timing…and very occasionally, death, because the card is associated with number zero…

Looking at The Fool I remarked to ‘Grandma’ that I felt the prospective employer was going to like her. Being dignified, right way up, this was a great card for job hunting. If she didn’t get this one, she’d be getting another soon. My mother sniffed, unimpressed, declaring that of course they would like her; such a neat and efficient button-like person. A proper grandma is nothing if not loyal.

The interview was on Wednesday. On Friday evening my daughter rang to say she had got it, and though she’s not much ‘into’ what I do, she’s absorbed enough not to have been unduly perplexed at my turn of expression as I congratulated her.

Idly playing with my cards at the dining table, I asked Il Matrimonio what he was doing with the fish tanks. He kept two tanks of tropical fish at that time, guppies in one, neon tetras in the tank in the dining room.

Male guppies are colourful, every individual’s unique. The females are drab coloured. They produce live babies, but the adults tend to cannibalise the newborns if they don’t make for the weeds as soon as they emerge, and hide there until they’re too big to be eaten. Awww. So sweeeet.

Neon tetras are small and slim, blue, red and white, with a zingy neon strip along their sides, as the name suggests.

The hubby explained that he was introducing a young male guppy into the tetra tank for his own safety. Whereupon, using my old Universal Waite deck that day, I drew The High Priestess. (US Games)

However, I work with reversed cards, and I drew her reversed. A reversed card is not necessarily negative in connotation. It may simply flag up an area requiring special care. But I felt this was a warning, to be read in a literal sense.

‘I don’t think you should do that,’ I said. ‘I’m seeing danger here from a lady who is blue, white and red. I think the tetras will have him if you put him in there, and I think he won’t last two weeks.’

(Tarot can work like this with timing. The High Priestess is Major Trump 2.)

Il Matrimonio was having none of it. The tetras were no risk to the guppy, they were too small, completely harmless. What did I know about tropical fish, etc etc?

Eff all, it is true. Please, any proper a-fish-ionad-os reading this, do not troll me on this score. But the reader does not have to factually know. That is the point and indeed the potential usefulness of oracular divination.

‘Ok,’ I said, ‘in which case it is a warning against the tetra tank. I wouldn’t put him in there.’

‘Well, he won’t last if I leave him where he is.’

A few days later, poor guppy was gone. RIP. Not so much as a fin left.

Not saying the tetras did it any harm. It might have been something about the tank, and maybe guppy was toast whatever Il Matrimonio did, but they certainly cleaned him away.

All we had left were the tetras, swimming innocently about, the piscine little High Priests/esses in their grotto.

I drew The Ace of Pentacles once, and was initially puzzled as to why, Tarot was flagging it up as a problem, but the lady was adamant there were no money or property issues troubling her, as I would have expected with this card, being drawn reversed as it was.

In fact it did represent a property issue. It was just that the lady hadn’t thought of it in those terms. The Ace of Pentacles reversed represented a diamond ring, and the card was drawn reversed because the ring was missing and had been lost now for more than eighteen months. The lady was very sad about it. The ring had been a gift from her husband who had died three years previously; a fact I knew already from previous readings for this delightful lady.

If I had not already known, the appearance of the 9 of Swords (grieving, bereavement, sleepless nights) would have been a clue.

The lady asked my help in finding the missing ring. DISCLAIMER follows: Neither dowsing or remote viewing – the other possibility for finding lost objects psychically – form part of my professional service, which focusses on situational feedback, advice and forecasts.

I reminded her of this, but she asked me to please just have a go anyway. I’d been right about things before, and the loss was preying on her mind. I agreed because I knew her, and knew she would understand it was a long shot. I said I would not charge, as I could not guarantee success. She replied, gracious as always, she wished to pay for my time, regardless.

I began by asking the Tarot whether the lost ring was still in my clients flat.

I did this using a counting spread. This is how it works. Drawing more than 50% of the cards upright is a yes answer in this type of spread, less than 50% is a no. The more upright cards, the stronger the ‘yes’ signal. The more reversed cards, the stronger the ‘no’ .

Getting a 50% answer, which happens a lot, gaaahhh, is the greatest challenge and often, I have learned the hard way, signifies the need to rephrase the question, or ask a different question to obtain the best answer.

Using this counting approach now, the Tarot indicated that yes, the ring was in her flat still. It had not been thrown away by accident as she feared.

The prospect of using the cards for narrowing down the exact location of a ring in a flat I had never visited was a time -consuming prospect however. I decided that instead, I would try dowsing with a pendulum.

I didn’t have my quartz pendulum handy, so I removed my neck chain which had a small pendant. I would use this to request yes, no and maybe answers that would help me edit out all the other impressions that might come to me through the cards.

I would draw single cards for extra information.

I wrote the word ‘Bedroom‘ on paper first because my client was pretty determined that the ring must be in the bedroom. I suspended the chain and locket over the word and it described an anti-clockwise circle which I took for a no answer.

Dowsing appeared to have selected the sitting room. I drew another card at random and got The Death card. All I could think was that the lost ring was somehow in the keeping of the lady’s deceased husband.

Had her husband been buried or cremated, I asked? Cremated she said. I proceeded to tell her a story from my own life in which I had dowsed a dear one’s ashes, to know where they should be scattered, in accordance with the owners preferences, there having been no instruction in the will. Why did I tell her this? I did not fully understand at the time, but I would later.

Was there a vase in her sitting room with white roses in it? I asked. My reason for asking was that the thought came to me, considering the white rose on Death’s banner you can see on the picture of this Rider-Waite card (U.S Games).

No, she said, there were no white roses. Oh, well, I said, it was just a thought. Not to worry, but perhaps just bear it in mind while you look.

She left with advice to search the sitting room, near objects with a strong physical association with her husband. It really felt to me as if he had it, and was looking after it for her…a crazy notion, on the face of it.

She left at 12.30. At 2.55 she rang to tell me she had found the ring. She had needed a step- ladder to find it (so, if you see the 6 of Wands, which appeared at my first look, bear in mind it might, depending on circumstances, literally be a ladder.)

The diamond ring was on top of a wall unit in the sitting room, right beside the jar in which she kept her husband’s ashes.

‘I feel so silly,’ she said, ‘you asked about white roses, and I told you I hadn’t any when all the time there was a vase of them – silk ones, you know – on the hearth by the wall unit.’

I was delighted as you can imagine. Also a teensy bit freaked and considerable in awe.

How strange the Universe is and its workings. How mysterious the human mind is. She might have put it there herself, done it on automatic pilot and then forgotten. I helped her fetch it out of her memory. If not …the possibilities are strange indeed.

BUT. This is crucial, she was willing to work with me and help me try to help her. We found it together.

Check out dowsing on Google and Dowsing Associations and Societies if you’ve ever wondered if you have hidden water in your back garden, or want to know more about it in general. Use these links:-

I have found that the Tarot‘s predictive abilities will help with travel plans, and I’ve made use of this when booking holidays etc.

This was how I first discovered the potential.

Planning to drive from Lancashire to Tewkesbury one Saturday, a round trip of 330 miles that had to be done in a day, in a two car convoy delivering a car to my elder daughter, we were dreading the M6.

I thought I’d ask the Tarot to suggest the optimal time for setting off, that would enable us to avoid traffic trouble.

To do this I drew cards to represent a range of logical departure times, drawing one card per time slot. In the card slot representing a 1.00 pm departure I drew a very positive ‘travel’ card…the Page of Wands.

He’s warmly dressed for the desert, isn’t he? His tunic is decorated with little salamanders, an amphibian magically symbolic of the element of fire. Wands is the fire suit in Tarot, and symbolises the South. Pages in the Tarot represent starts/beginnings, amongst other things, and Wands is the suit of flickering flames, movement and travel. The card therefore represented a relevant fit to the question.

We set off at 1.00 pm and the Page didn’t let us down.

Heading south we passed an horrendous jam on the northbound carriageway just north of Stafford. It was the length of two junctions. There had been an accident. We carried on, crossing our fingers for the injured people, and the poor souls stuck in the jam, getting desperate by now surely, and wanting drinks or the loo.

We dreaded returning that way within the next few hours. Having to avoid the jam by changing route was not a good option. The Page of Wands was being put on his mettle.

But he proved reliable. Heading north again, nothing remained of the jam but some debris swept into the central reservation. Arriving home free of further worry, what could I say but ‘Thank you.’ Here was the Tarot showing, yet again, that it’s a fully adaptable tool for the modern world.

What’s this all about? Forecasting or magic, or tuning into instinct and trying to programme the will? Are all three one and the same? Very likely. Will it always work?

The most confident and expert reader in the world (and this is not me) is only human and frail, so, I would say not. Interesting potential here though, do you think?

Other positive travel cards in the Tarot: The Ace of Wands, the 8 of Wands, the 6 of Swords, The Chariot, The Wheel of Fortune, The Sun, and The World.

Equally of course, the Tarot may warn against travel or foresee problems.

Travel is risky. We live in a bubble of illusion, forgetting this. Marco Polo would be astonished at our blase statements that we will be arriving here or there at a certain time on a certain day….To travel is to gamble…here the Tarot’s Wheel of Fortune card is symbolising the blind forces of luck, fate, chance…If you draw it right way up, it’s good news for travel. Drawn upside down? Uh Oh. Questions need to be asked. Identify the problem that the Tarot is sensing, you may be able to get that card to appear again, right way up, and then you’ll know it’s sorted.

Medieval Image of The Wheel Of Fortune

If you draw The Moon card you’d be wise to double- check the arrangements, tickets, passport, car hire, E111 cards and any other travel documents.The Moon can also warn of illness, poisoning or infection so it’s appearance is a reminder to take protective steps against malaria, travellers tummy etc. The Moon is paranoid at times, but here it is trying to help you, and actually it’s common sense. It’s just that The Moon is detecting an increased risk of problems at present. Be vigilant.

The Rider-Waite’s Moon card

Runes are used for advice about travel too, or to invoke ‘magical’ protection. Auspicious runes for travel include Rad or Raitho. (Journeys, Riding) as shown below…

… and The Horse, Ehwaz (vehicle, a unit of travel, such as a carriage, shank’s pony)

(Images source sacreddivination.com)

My experience, having used these alongside Tarot, is such that I would not neglect their study for this work, either. For ‘luck’ a prospective traveller might for instance, copy out their symbols, investing positive, respectful and appreciative expectation into the act of drawing. The symbol might then be carried on the person, in a pocket or wallet, or in the vehicle but it needs to kept upright, not carried or stored in such a way it might turn upside down and reverse the ‘luck’.

Magical thinking?

A bit bonkers?

Perhaps. But the human mind is eons older than human language and:-

‘If the mind will trust the body, the body will trust the mind, then the spirit of a thing can become greater than one thing.‘

Rune 2 For the afternoon to come: a blank rune…no ascribed meaning. Historically, there is no such thing as a blank rune. Rune scholars usually discount them as an invention of the 1980’s. However, this set had one and I drew it and decided to let it be.

Rune 3 For the evening to come: EIHWAZ …Yew…death/regenaration. Yikes, I wondered what form that would take.

I had made no firm plans for the day at this point.

Within half an hour I took a telephone booking for a reading: this explained FEHU.

During the afternoon I crashed out tired from a poor nights sleep and remained comatose for two hours. This would account for my drawing the blank rune – a reasonable pictorial representation of my scondition between 3 and 5!

In the evening, we made what seemed like an impulse decision but actually wasn’t; to visit a family grave in Preston cemetery, taking a rose from our garden.

I had forgotten the rune reading and only realised on Monday, that this had actually been pre-indicated by the Yew rune. A cemetery (death) with yew trees.

The Yew rune must have picked up on an idea that I had not yet consciously formulated…my plan to go was bubbling up to the surface when I would become aware of it, but hadn’t reached it yet.

Alternatively, drawing this rune was a self-fulfilling prophecy, and had acted to remind me that an anniversary was coming up, that I was in the habit of marking with a visit to the cemetery and a rose and that I wouldn’t want to forget.

This year, I wasn’t going to be able to visit on the usual day, 21st, and the rune had served me a wake-up call to go earlier on account of this.

Gutenberg: Yew

The Yew is a tree considered sacred since pre-Celtic times, and is still considered special and mystical today. It’s wood is pliant. It bends but does not break; a living metaphor for resilience. For this reason it was often used in the making of bows in archery. Its berries are toxic and can bring death, but its leaves are evergreen and so, and because of the mature trees majestic and moody appearance, it’s symbolically suited to cemeteries…as a symbol of death with resurrection.

A Day Ahead Reading is an excellent way to practice your predictive readings, and develop confidence in predicting (statements about the future detected as virtual fact) or forecasting (detection of trends and future likelihoods)

This applies whether with the Runes or the Tarot. You get the feedback same day and quickly start to amass data on which to assess your predictive ‘hit rate’ while developing predictive capability through the benefits of personalised hindsight study.

You’re welcome to share any of your own experiences of a Day Ahead Tarot Spread or predictive rune readings, clicking on the comment tag below.

On the evening of Saturday, Feb 13 2010, idly playing with my tarot cards, I become unsettled at the picture that emerged.

In an eight card spread I had the Chariot Reversed in the opening position, the Seven of Swords in the problem position, The Moon card in the ‘external influences position’ and the Ace of Coins Reversed in the outcome position.

It suggested a car problem. Losses, a sneak thief or maybe a database problem affecting the car. I knew I didn’t like it. But I was uncertain about the specifics. I puzzled over the ‘thief’ thoughts prompted by The Moon and Seven of Swords in connection with our car. How to respond?

We were away from home that night, and, feeling time was of the essence I asked Il Matrimonio to go straight down and check on the car. He returned saying everything was fine, adding a few rude remarks about mad cows for good measure.

Cassandras need broad shoulders sometimes. It’s perfectly true Tarot readers and their kind need to keep a tight rein on discipline and common sense if they are not to be carried away by the fairies. But Tarot is learned rather than taught, and risk of error and looking like an idiot is what it takes, in a serious attempt to hone skill. There will always be moments of self-doubt, confusion, discomfort, even downright fear at times.

Sometimes it’s with hindsight that we realise the Tarot did in fact know, and did in fact, try to tell us. We just weren’t able to join the dots in time. This is the occasional doom of all ‘sooth-sayers’ and is what I call a Cassandra Moment.

Cassandra was a seer and princess of Troy. She knew that the wooden horse left behind by the Greeks who had supposedly left and gone home after a ten-year siege was dangerous. She said so, but in their joy and relief that at last it was all over, no-one was ready to listen. The Greeks climbed out of the horse in the night, swords in hand, and her gift wasn’t able to save Troy, or herself either.

Anyway, back to the ‘car thief’. I was not satisfied. I was uneasy. But I just had to say, pending the hard evidence…my intuition on to something, and time will soon tell me what this was about. And in fact I found out the very next day, on returning home, when we discovered an unexplained debit on our credit card.

A car rental company in Pisa had on Friday 12 taken a payment of £42.00 for no reason we had been informed of. So the ‘theft’ had already occurred by the time I saw it on Saturday.

If I had seen it on Thursday, could I have stopped it?

Pisa: Author’s own photograph

Well, no. Having drawn the Ace of Coins Reversed (taking a financial loss) and Justice Reversed (injustice, bad contract) I was not hopeful of redress, and it emerged we had been fined for a parking offence committed last August in Pisa. That’s right. Last August! No wonder it hadn’t occurred to me to look in that direction.

The Tarot had warned me actually. The day before our trip I had drawn The Tower card. This is rarely good news. It can be a disaster card. However, I interpreted the cards appearance as a prefiguring of the Tower of Pisa. So you see how Cassandras may self-deceive.

On the way back to our holiday accommodation from Pisa we had a blow out on the autostrada, an unpleasant experience though no-one was hurt. I was able to warn my husband just before it happened and he went into the slow lane, thank goodness. The Tarot had proved itself with almost immediate effect, and this fining business was now the post script.

Merda! We were not knowingly guilty of an offence. We had stopped to ask for directions to the nearest parking, to be beckoned into a parking bay by a smiling uniformed parking attendant. But the police in Pisa had fined the car rental company for unauthorised parking, and the car rental company had recouped the fine on the credit card without notifying us. We were dismayed that they had retained our card details so long and were besides, furious.

I challenged the fine, and was with great politeness referred to some mind-bogglingly complex, time-bandit bureaucratic municipal maze.

Therefore, be very, very careful if visiting Florence Pisa or Rome by car. This is a worryingly common story.

I did say the Justice card was reversed, didn’t I? One must keep one’s sense of humour. I’ll only add, beware smiling car park attendants in the Comune di Pisa. They might turn out to be a little wooden horse, or a little wooden pony. Or an ass.

In view of the fact that today is ‘Father’s Day‘, as if for a father, every day is not, I thought I’d talk about the ultimate Tarot card of Masculinity with a capital M, The Emperor.

In general, ‘The Emperor’ appearing in a Tarot reading signifies the current extra significance of an important man in your life, at an individual level. He’s a father, husband, employer, friend or advisor.

At a conceptual level, The Emperor stands for government, law and order, other big, hierarchical organisdations. He is the Armed Forces. He is the principle of protection and of the guardian at work in society and in the home.

See those ram’s heads on the arms of his throne? The Emperor is associated with the sign of Aries, the fiery ram. It may indicate a future event occurring at that time of year.

Image below is The Emperor from The Gilded Tarot, by kind permission of Ciro Marchetti

Not surprisingly I’ve drawn this card when doing readings for police officers, both male and female. Women too can embody The Emperor’s qualities.

But once – and I won’t handle any more requests for lawsuit predictions; I drew the Emperor card, and it was talking about a real live judge. This judge was in the US. We won’t say where. My client was very anxious on her son’s behalf. He had been accused of sexual assault.

The details of the charge sounded so minor as to be almost laughable, but even so, and whatever the truth, the man faced serious consequences. He was a teacher and had been suspended from his employment as it involved work with minors, although the woman making the accusation was not a minor. He faced the possibility of being debarred from his home , denied unsupervised access to his children. He was, at the time of the reading, due to appear in court four days later.

A Tarot reading is not a substitute for suitable, professional legal, medical or financial advice. Forecasting is offered in good faith but is by law to be treated as being for interest’s sake. In consulting ANY oracle, you need always to be prepared for the possibility you really might not like the answer.

My client, his mother, wanted to be prepared for the worst, ready to support her son.

Based on this, I didn’t KNOW because a reader cannot KNOW for certain, ever. But I felt as certain as I could be, she was going to like this judge. I felt that the man was not guilty and that the judge would decide so.

Three weeks and several new grey hairs later, I learned the The Judge had thrown the case out. He had also offered this personal opinion:- verbatim (pardon me)

‘What a crock of sh*t.’

The Emperor at his very best represents order, structure, logic, sense and reason.

He is a chevalier, a sheltering tree, nests held safely in his branches. He is rule with mercy, compassion for the weak. He upholds fair play raising his shield so not everyone sheltering behind it gets splattered with rubbish and, er…manure.

He has another side to him of course: war, dictatorship, tyranny, petty officialdom, overbearing bureaucracy. The card may alternatively signify absence of structure and leadership. As a person, it may be pinpointing weakness or conversely, a bully boy. The Emperor Reversed is no joke, no doubt about it.

Historically, Emperors have often been catastrophic for the peace and happiness of their fellow humans, and Alexander the Great is no hero of mine; I’d rather nominate Dr John Snow or Charles Darwin, not only for their achievements, but for their humanity; as tender as tough.

Summertime, and the livin’ is easy. Except, flying home from Spain on Sunday over the Bay of Biscay , it was clear to see the cradle of our summer weather problems….you could look down and see what the jet stream was brewing there, and the head on the beer just went on and on. The account below was written in 2010 and spoke of events in 2009. Our summers have been odd since at least 2008, with the last scorcher in 2006. Implications for the UK Tourist Industry, offset against the effects of recession?

‘The weather was odd at home last year in 2010, and even in N Italy where we went in August 2009…it was very changeable, cool at times, and there were cracking thunderstorms nearly every day. Forked lightening like you could scarcely believe. Now, you can’t see the bites in this photo, taken near Florence that summer, but the Italian for ‘mosquito,’ I can inform you, is zanzara. And the word for a bite is puntura. These are helpful words to know when you need to go to la farmacia.

I had received a warning about the mosquito campaign from the Tarot, fat lot of good it did me. The warning was presented as follows.

The Page of Swords (A Page card in Tarot can mean something small, swords can mean air and something that is sword-like and sharp – like a needle or in this case, a bite or sting)

The Page of Pentacles Reversed (ie in Tarot’s language ‘debased earth’, prefiguring the infection of said bites, round and swollen and red, the opposite of the green associated with pentacles cards, the suit of earth. )

The Page of Cups Reversed. Ahem. Not looking one’s best going round impersonating a human giant measle. The suit of Cups relates to healing, happiness, well-being and beauty. It corresponds with the element of water, and therefore also indicated a need to ensure maintenance of adequate hydration.

I had upon reading this duly armed myself with repellent ( ask for controlgio d’insetti, folks) after our first night there. Did it work? Did it heck. But don’t let that put you off. It might for you.

Then – and perhaps I reacted unusually badly because my immune system was depressed, I tried anti-histamines, hydrocortisone, lavender, tea tree, TCP and finally, a course of antibiotics from a gentle Italian GP who came out 40 minutes after being called. This allowed us the guilty thrill of using that little plastic E111 card for the first time. The service was brilliant though it did cost 25 euros for the call-out, but hey, it was 7.30 on a Saturday evening. We were grateful. Would we have received such a prompt response at home?

We need the Jet Stream to move north. I think we’ll have some better pockets dotted fairly regularly throughout August. Better than June and July, I mean. Another fairly crummy summer so far…but we will never surrender. We will fight it in the garden, and in front of the telly, and in good company, and with a cup of cocoa and….

One of the hottest summers I remember, was two weeks spent on the Appin Peninsula in NW Scotland. And it was sublime. It was glorious, and there were white sands and blue waters to rival the Med any day. The only problem (- there is always a serpent in paradise) was the darn, pesking clouds of mozzies.

I rarely watch sport, and can’t bear all the roaring and howling that comes out of the telly when football’s on. Some of those commentators get really foamingly hysterical and could do with a slap. But who am I to naysay a national passion? The card below, the 6 of Pentacles, also known as Coins or Discs, is the card I have learned to associate with the ‘home crowd’.

I wouldn’t feel comfortable using the Tarot for betting purposes. Or safe. It would seem disrespectful, contrary to ethics, and if it didn’t work out, there could be unwanted comeback. And if it did work out, there could be unwanted comeback.

Maybe someone would like to make a movie about a tarot reader who gets a hit man set on to them by a cartel of evil bookmakers, because the reader’s giving too many winning tips and it’s costing the bookmakers big time. Hello, Quentin T? Are you there?

But if Tarot is a divination tool, what will it co-operate in divining for and what won’t it divine for? Does the ability to divine depend upon the reader having a personal interest or sense of connection to the question?

I live just down the road from Blackpool and Saturday was a big sporting event. Blackpool (the Tangerines) were playing Cardiff at Wembley. At stake, so I gather, a place in the Premier League and £90 million. High stakes indeed.

I laid out my cards in a counting spread. I laid out six cards and above them another. The six cards ‘count’ for one point each. The solitary card above them counts for two, giving a total of eight.

I laid out two of these spreads, one to represent Blackpool, the other Cardiff.

As I shuffled I asked to be shown the winning team.

Normally in a counting spread, a likelihood of something happening will be given by a result of drawing more upright cards than upside down cards, known as reversals.

I drew a count of three upright cards for Blackpool. Doesn’t look great, I thought. Then I drew a count of two uprights for Cardiff. Oh, I thought. That’s not a win either according to my usual system.

I decided that the Tarot had answered a differently phrased question. It knew what I was trying to get at and had answered me very directly, not by saying a yes or no, but by indicating the SCORE.

And a little over two hours later, we had the score: Blackpool 3: Cardiff City 2.

As a tarot reader, getting an answer that doesn’t seem to fit the question, be prepared to discover that the answer you’ll get is a correct answer to the question as the Tarot preferred to tackle it.

Tackle. Geddit?

So in answer to the original question…no. Divination does not require an emotional connection from the reader. In fact, this could skew the results. Reading for yourself if you’re tired or anxious, or reading for loved ones where there is anxiety or hope attached to the question, may produce distortion of interpretation.

If reading for yourself, try pulling an extra card – a BIAS CARD to identify any such distortion.

When receiving a reading, bear in mind tarot and similar activities work best when your reader is in an ‘alpha state,’ a condition of relaxed consciousness. Scowling at a reader with cold suspicion, arms folded, is not conducive to the alpha state for either of you…because you too, will get most from your reading in the creative receptivity of alpha state.

If you follow football, you have pretty good hunches sometimes, and want to be even better at hedging your bets…you could do much worse than hone your intuition by learning a divination skill. Joking aside, such skills, whether you’re using tarot cards, ordinary playing cards, runes, divining rods, mirrors or pendulums…are a tool for life, with who knows how many applications.

Sometimes in a Tarot reading, the issue being detected is literally a legal matter. For a true story about that see my later blog ‘Manpower. The Emperor Card.’

Very often though, it refers to our sense of natural justice, our wish to see fair play done. The Tarot may then kick in as a kind of agony aunt. When we draw it in a reading for ourselves, the advice is to remember to play fair, to try and keep a balanced view, to deal in facts and to keep a cool, calm head.

I recently drew a card, Justice Reversed (meaning injustice or delayed justice) in a tarot sitting with a new client. The client had explained that she didn’t really know why she had come. There was no specific problem to be addressed, she said, but she had a weight on her mind and would welcome a little help in getting free of it. The Tarot adores doing this sort of work.

The Justice Card (Rider Waite, U.S Games)

Justice Reversed was the first card drawn, the keynote card of the reading. Because it’s a Major Card and because of the lack of a clear single theme shown in the other 7 cards of the spread, I felt its influence was working on her in more than one respect.

She wasn’t depressed, I didn’t think. Not as such. (No Star card Reversed) There was illness in the family though. I drew The 4 of Swords nicknamed ‘the hospital’ card. There was great anxiety and conflicted feelings connected to the forming of a new relationship (The Devil) There was a much loved mother on her mind (The Empress)

My client hadn’t mentioned her job. She hadn’t told me anything, only that she had a baby son.

But drawing the Justice card, though Reversed, prompted me to tell her that she could discuss work if she wished, because I had experience of reading for commercial lawyers. She then said she was a commercial lawyer.

Now the Justice card, as with any predominance of Swords cards, can indicate that a client works in the legal profession. However, there are many more occasions when when there’ll be no such connection. So a reader seeing this card cannot assume the client’s job is in Law. But on this occasion the card had served to prompt a hunch. Thisis the bridge between intuition and clairvoyancy.

The client had been harbouring a sense of injustice following a promotion disappointment the previous year. She did not trust the reasons she had been given for not getting the promotion. The Tarot however said that justice had been done. She was still very young, had been in practice 4 years and had been judged not quite ready..it was no more worrying or sinister than that, and so letting go would serve her best now. Promotion looked as if it was in the offing in the not too distant future…positive developments were indicated for July-September.

This the client said she could imagine, as she was aware of activities in the pipeline around that time.

There were other, less easily resolvable issues attached to Justice Reversed, relating to difficulties with a father who had ‘disowned’ her because he hadn’t agreed with her choice of husband. The Tarot had things to tell her and she left saying she felt much better, calmer in herself. She had formulated a strategy now for handling the problem with her father, and other issues

The Tarot is economical. It has to be able to talk about any human experience at all, using a toolbox of only 78 cards. Each card is a plump and shiny-coated workhorse, and will do multiple jobs in the course of a single reading. Especially if it is a Major card – this can really ‘up the ante’.

Card 2 WATER / West stands the Suit of Cups: I look here for insights into matters of the heart, what’s going on in their personal relationships. How’s their mood? I look out here also for issues to do with health, healing and recovery, and for creative and spiritual preoccupations or questions.

Card 3 FIRE/ South stands for the Suit of Wands: here I’m asking myself via the Tarot, what’s driving them? What’s the dream right now? Travel and relocation plans may also show up here, and social aspects, and levels of inspiration and energy.

Card 4 AIR/ East stands for the Suit of Swords: here I’m looking for a sense of, what’s going on in their head right now? (apart from the reading, obviously) I look here for their plans, pending decisions, exercising choice and power, and any legal, medical or intellectual matters.

A fifth card is drawn for the centre of the cross, and here I am explicitly asking, what is the priority to be addressed in this reading session? What is THE Question?

Card 4 (E) Swords The Wheel of Fortune (Thinking of making major changes, this being indicated as a good idea)

Question Card: Judgement

The Four of Wands Reversed

Client Response: This Card correctly indicated dissatisfaction connected to a home/property and/or a professional matter. The client had a flat on the market, no offers as yet, and had just bought a new house, but didn’t feel settled and was feeling anxious that she had made a false step. She liked her work but had been unsettled there recently, having difficulty with a new manager’s communication style. She was thinking of retirement (and this card when reversed means a LACK or ENDING or a NON-STARTING of a professional activity or satisfaction.)

The Emperor Reversed

Client Response: This card rang true. She confirmed both as concerns that were preoccupying her at this time.

The 3 of Cups

Client response. She wanted, not a husband necessarily, but a proper companion. The man in her life would not entertain the thought of marriage, nor would he court her, nor even come to visit her in her new home. She was beginning to feel, not only sad but angry about this (the growing anger shown again to me later by the 5 of Swords) Her new house did not feel like home…she felt she hadn’t had a ‘house warming’…

The Wheel of Fortune

Client Response: She was ready for change, beginning to think very hard about what she wanted and needed after retirement. She felt she wanted life to continue opening up…she didn’t want it to narrow, she dreaded the idea of a dead-end.

The Question Card Judgement: Retirement was approaching, the end of a major life chapter. A kind of Judgement Day. Her essential question was, What would her life be like after it?

There were strong signs of happiness in retirement, indicated as being about eighteen months down the line. The relationship problem wasn’t going to be an obstacle to this. If the man chose not to opt in more actively, I sensed she was going on to sail on regardless, and if he didn’t respond, he was likely to be left behind.

Mustard was a 13 year old gelding, and he competed in dressage. This much I had already been told before looking at his cards. My brief was to enquire about his general happiness and well-being, and to see whether the Tarot could pick up on any of his preferences or wishes. Here are a few of the cards we got, and an indication of the feedback I received from Mustard’s owner.

How was Mustard feeling about life at that moment? I drew the 4 of Pentacles. This card of material stability indicated that he generally felt safe and secure, and enjoyed his current routine. He didn’t seem too keen on sharing. He liked to hang on to any good thing he was given. He was by temperament, steadfast, slightly conservative, not given to impulsive behaviour. He liked a little bit of variety in his routine ‘but not too much’. His owner laughed at this description, saying she recognised it. He could be stubborn.

The 7 of Cups suggested to me that Mustard was sensitive and responsive with a good imagination. His owner confirmed this, saying he was the most easily trained pony she had worked with, very quick on the uptake.

I asked to know more about something he liked, and the 3 of Cups suggested Mustard had two special friendships. These must have been a horse and a pony he shared his field with during day time, his owner explained.

I asked about what might be coming up in the near future for Mustard. I drew the 6 of Swords, a card of possible relocation which made me ask if Mustard was aware of any plans for him to move. The answer was maybe; he was going to be moved very soon to a new, bigger stable with 30 horses and ponies.

The 5 of Cups , a grieving card, indicated Mustard would not like separation from his two old friends. His owner said he would still see his friends. Their owner and she rode the horses out together and would continue to do so.I suggested she try telling Mustard this, sending him a visual message of him going along the lanes with his old friends. He might not be able to understand the words but he might receive the ‘TV’ picture and the emotion she attached to that. Who are we to say he could not?

I drew a general advice card for Mustard. This was The Moon card and I sensed he felt afraid if stabled alone at night.

Rider-Waite Moon card, dreams, hunting, fear, psychism. U’S Games.

There were dogs barking somewhere near outside, he seemed to be saying; he didn’t like that. And strange shadows scared him. I suggested his owner leave an old coat with Mustard when he is alone, so her scent can reassure him in her absence. She confirmed that there were dogs on a neighbouring farm. There were two or three Jack Russells and they barked a lot. It hadn’t occurred to her they might worry Mustard with night barking as she wasn’t usually there at that time, but she was moving him to the bigger stable because she was aware he didn’t like being alone at night.

I drew a card to signify something Mustard else might worry about.
The 5 of Wands suggested Mustard was anxious in competitions. He didn’t like loud noise and if ever asked to, would be nervous of jumping a 5 barred gate. I suggested his owner try rubbing a little Rescue Remedy on his nose (not on the sensitive bits) the next time they competed, the following weekend. The owner did try it, and reported her surprise at noticing a difference in his body language from usual: she said he was much more ‘laid back.’

I drew another card, asking to know about something Mustard would enjoy but hasn’t got? I drew the Page of Pentacles, and The Moon card. These somehow suggested…and this was purely an intuitive impression – mangold or swedes. I was told he has never eaten one, to the best of the owner’s knowledge. Well, I hope he gets to try one soon so we will know. Meanwhile, on this point the Tarot remains unproven.

I was told Mustard was receiving citronella products to minimise insect bites. Tarot is not a vet and does not claim to be but The Empress Card suggested if there was any question of supplementing his diet in any way omega 3/6 oils – vegetable based, as with hemp or flax seed instead of fish oils might benefit him. Something to do with his grains or feed might not be suiting him…the card shows a field of what looks like wheat or corn.

Months later, I heard that the owner had changed Mustard’s hay intake, and this apparently sorted the problem.

Other species read for so far: dogs, cats, hamsters, fish and birds. I’d probably struggle with anything too different from ourselves. I seriously doubt I could read for a worm or a jellyfish, and verification might be an issue, but I’d be open to trying. Such is the fun of Tarot.